helpful, inspired, jealous, amused or excited do warrant a share every single time. Are you cultivating content and experiences with share-ability in mind?
So how can your spa business adapt to this reality and“ earn” millennial attention and revenue more effectively using social media?
The obvious answer you already know is to provide them with a dynamic experience that vastly exceeds their expectations so they will naturally share it with friends and family. Ideally, they will take this action independent of you begging, bugging or incentivizing them. For viral share insurance, make sure you understand and implement these five cornerstones of social media success for marketing to millennials:
1. TECH YEAH! Experiment with every crazy new network out there to find what works for you. Yes! Snapchat! Even if you don’ t know what you are doing, it contributes to your first-mover brand persona, which impacts your technology, products and staff being perceived as the latest and the best in your field. The landscape in these new social channels is not crowded yet so you also gain an edge in the undersaturation from competitors.
According to data from Deloitte, we check our mobile phones 74 times a day on average. From on-demand transportation to taco delivery and money transfers, we are accustomed to frictionless, mobile experiences every day of our lives. Ensure that ordering your products, booking your treatments, and paying for transactions is simple, shareable and designed for mobile interaction. Also make sure that any visual content you create is optimized for consumption on a tiny five-inch screen. What looks stunning on television or desktop does not translate onto smaller viewing devices like tablets and smartphones.
The irony of living with our phones glued to our hands is that we hate actually talking on them. In today’ s world, calling your millennial customers and clients is viewed as intrusive, presumptuous and prioritizing your needs over ours. We don’ t want to call you because small talk is inefficient. We just want to browse, book and pay seamlessly using apps. The MindBody booking app might be the greatest app of all time. No, the DryBar’ s app is. Ah, actually I love them all! Calling a spa to make three appointments which takes an average of seven minutes on the phone? Grrrrr.
2. SHOW, DON’ T TELL. The length of this sentence is 24 words, the average number of words a millennial can read during his or her eight-second-long attention span. With all of the notifications we get, we switch digital platforms an average of 27 times an hour. We are“ lean forward, add, click-awayfrom-YouTube-videos-in-2.2 seconds and non-reading” moving targets. We are obsessed with videos more than any other
Millennials value companies that do social good.
media. Look at the rise of emoticons, GIFs, memes, infographics and video-streaming and sharing! We are circling back to the caveman or hieroglyphic days when pictures tell every story. It takes all of our brains much longer time to process texts over images, so keep this in mind the next time you are creating long brochures, pamphlets, postcards or textheavy web pages. Whatever you are trying to communicate to us, remember to replace words with images whenever possible. Descriptions, processes and instructions should be short, simple, shareable and packed with visual imagery to educate us most effectively.
3. SOCIAL GOOD RULES. Recruit us to your purpose as an organization. Communicate your mission in an emotional way. As the“ change the world” generation, we need to understand the“ why” behind you and your cause.( Thank you, Simon Sinek!) We gravitate toward brands that are part of something bigger than themselves. Actions you’ d like us to take should be simple and straightforward. TOMS, Warby Parker, Ethos Water— we cannot get enough of the idea that what we are purchasing and experiencing is helping someone less fortunate somewhere. Communicate your mission clearly, deliver on your promises authentically, and we will be your customers for life.
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28 PULSE ■ November 2016